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THE BIRDS 

AND OTHER POEMS 





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CGPYRZGKT DEPOSIT. 



THE BIRDS 

AND OTHER POEMS 

J. C. SQUIRE 



THE BIRDS 

AND OTHER POEMS 







IRE 



M 




NEW ' 
RGE H. ] RAN UPAN 






COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



(XAeSfcft 1921 



TO 
EDMUND GOSSE 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE BIRDS . ii 

PROCESSES OF THOUGHT 19 

AIRSHIP OVER SUBURB ........ 31 

HARLEQUIN 35 

WINTER NIGHTFALL ......... 41 

SONG 19 

SONG 51 

A FAR PLACE 55 



vu 



THE BIRDS 



THE BIRDS 

Within mankind's duration, so they say, 
Khephren and Ninus lived but yesterday. 
Asia had no name till man was old 
And long had learned the use of iron and gold; 
And seons had passed, when the first corn was 

planted, 
Since first the use of syllables was granted. 

Men were on earth while climates slowly 

swung, 
Fanning wide zones to heat and cold, and long 
Subsidence turned great continents to sea, 
And seas dried up, dried up interminably, 
Age after age; enormous seas were dried 
Amid wastes of land. And the last monsters 

died. 

[11] 



THE BIRDS 

Earth wore another face. O since that prime 
Man with how many works has sprinkled time ! 
Hammering, hewing, digging tunnels, roads; 
Building ships, temples, multiform abodes. 
How, for his body's appetites, his toils 
Have conquered all earth's products, all her 

soils ; 
And in what thousand thousand shapes of art 
He has tried to find a language for his heart! 

Never at rest, never content or tired: 
Insatiate wanderer, marvellously fired, 
Most grandly piling and piling into the air 
Stones that will topple or arch he knows not 
where. 

And yet did I, this spring, think it more 

strange, 
More grand, more full of awe, than all that 

change, 
And lovely and sweet and touching unto tears, 
That through man's chronicled and unchron- 

icled years, 

[121 



THE BIRDS 

And even into that unguessable beyond 
The water-hen has nested by a pond, 
Weaving dry flags into a beaten floor, 
The one sure product of her only lore. 
Low on a ledge above the shadowed water 
Then, when she heard no men, as nature 

taught her, 
Plashing around with busy scarlet bill 
She built that nest, her nest, and builds it still. 



O let your strong imagination turn 
The great wheel backward, until Troy unburn, 
And then unbuild, and seven Troys below 
Rise out of death, and dwindle, and outflow, 
Till all have passed, and none has yet been 

there : 
Back, ever back. Our birds still crossed the 

air; 
Beyond our myriad changing generations 
Still built, unchanged, their known inhabita- 
tions. 
A million years before Atlantis was 

[13] 



THE BIRDS 

Our lark sprang from some hollow in the 
grass, 

Some old soft hoof -print in a tussock's shade; 
And the wood-pigeon's smooth snow-white 

eggs were laid, 
High amid green pines' sunset-coloured 

shafts, 
And rooks their villages of twiggy rafts 
Set on the tops of elms, where elms grew then, 
And still the thumbling tit and perky wren 
Popped through the tiny doors of cosy balls 
And the blackbird lined with moss his high- 
built walls; 
A round mud cottage held the thrush's young, 
And straws from the untidy sparrow's hung. 
And, skimming forktailed in the evening air, 
When man first was were not the martens 

there ? 
Did not those birds some human shelter crave, 
And stow beneath the cornice of his cave 
Their dry tight cups of clay? And from each 

door 
Peeped on a morning wiseheads three or four. 
[14] 



THE BIRDS 

Yes, daw and owl, curlew and crested hern, 
Kingfisher, mallard, water-rail and tern, 
Chaffinch and greenfinch, wagtail, stonechat, 

ruff, 
Pied warbler, robin, fly-catcher and chough, 
Missel-thrush, magpie, sparrow-hawk and jay, 
Built, those far ages gone, in this year's way. 
And the first man who walked the cliffs of 

Rome, 
As I this year, looked down and saw the same 
Blotches of rusty red on ledge and cleft 
With grey-green spots on them, while right 

and left 
A dizzying tangle of gulls were floating and 

flying, 
Wheeling and crossing and darting, crying 

and crying, 
Circling and crying, over and over and over, 
Crying with swoop and hover and fall and 

recover. 
And below on a rock against the grey sea 

fretted, 
Pipe-necked and stationary and silhouetted, 

[15] 



THE BIRDS 

Cormorants stood in a wise, black, equal row 
Above the nests and long blue eggs we know, 

O delicate chain over all the ages stretched, 
O dumb tradition from what far darkness 

fetched : 
Each little architect with its one design 
Perpetual, fixed and right in stuff and line, 
Each little ministrant who knows one thing, 
One learned rite to celebrate the spring. 
Whatever alters else on sea and shore, 
These are unchanging: man must still explore. 



[16] 



PROCESSES OF THOUGHT 



PROCESSES OF THOUGHT 



I find my mind as it were a deep water. 

Sometimes I play with a thought and hammer 

and bend it, 
Till tired and displeased with that I toss it 

away, 
Or absently let it slip to the yawning water: 
And down it sinks, forgotten for many a day. 



But a time comes when tide or tempest washes 

it 
High on the beach, and I find that shape of 

mine, 

[19] 



THE BIRDS 

Or I haul it out from the depths on some 

casual rope, 
Or, passing over that spot in quiet shine, 



I see, where my boat's shadow makes deep the 

water, 
A patch of colour, far down, from the bottom 

apart, 
A wavering sign like the gleam from an 

ancient anchor, 
Brown fixing and fleeting flakes; and I feel 

my heart 



Wake to a strange excitement ; so that I stop, 
Put up my paddles and dredge with a careful 

net: 
And I catch it, and see it stir, and feel its 

weight, 
And pull till it nears and breaks from the 

water wet. 

[20] 



PROCESSES OF THOUGHT 

And my eyes dwell on, that old abandoned 
thing 

Recovered by chance. For the shape I had 
found so dull 

Has crusted and changed in secrecy and 
silence, 

And its surface shines like a pearl, most beau- 
tiful. 



[21] 



II 



In bed I lie, and my thoughts come filing by, 
All forms and faces, cheerful, serene and sad: 
Some clear, some mistily showing and frag- 
mentary, 
Some altered in size or shape since last they 
were seen. 



But O last, you group of merry ones! 

Lord knows when I saw you before, but I met 

you once, 
The whole collection of you, impudent-eyed; 
And now, rosy and grinning, with linked arms 
You go swingingly by, turning your faces to 

mine, 
I laugh aloud ; you bad lots ; you are a secret, 
That nobody else knows. 

[22] 



PROCESSES OF THOUGHT 

And you it was that made me break the pro- 
cession 

(While memory gave me still the power of 
summons), 

And call up all I could of a half-hour's 
thoughts 

To parade them across this proscenium of my 
skull 

In the order they came in, more carefully rec- 
ognising 

The old, and remarking which have developed 
or changed. 

And as for you, you rogues, I am almost 
certain 

There are one or two more of you now than 
once there were. 

* * * * 

Good-bye! Good-bye! Dance through the 

dark door 
In to the life that somewhere else you lead. 
And one day I shall all unwittingly call 
Some word you know as a signal, or you'll see 

[23] 



THE BIRDS 

Someone else coming my way; you'll suddenly 

follow, 
And you'll appear again, quite possibly 
Bringing new friends — who are sure to be just 

as bad. 



[24] 



Ill 



Into the pits of my heart and brain, 

My eyes, ears, nose, tongue, fingers, like five 

gardeners 
Are shovelling sights, sounds, odours, savours, 

contacts, 
While I, their master, casually nod, and most 

times 
Stand idly by, looking at something else, 
Forgetting that the work is going on 
And only fully conscious of my servants 
When something they move is consonant with 

my mood 
And draws my notice ; or some other thing, 
More strange than usual or stronger in its 

impact 
Makes them exclaim and call to bid me watch. 

[25] 



THE BIRDS 

And then in a ground of more than our dimen- 
sions 
Those quietly flowing cascades of things are 

hid. 
They are buried in those illimitable fields, 
And ever as they are swallowed by the earth 
The steady hours passing in procession 
Walk over them and trample them well down 
Out of sight, levelling all the soil. 



Then some time my returning feet uncover 

them 
(My slaves are all agog with recognition) 
Or else perhaps I come and idly dig 
To see what thing I can find, and out there 

comes 
Some old form buried twenty years ago 
Now called a memory. 

Or marking well the place where one was put 
Find it and more, drawn thither under the 

ground, 

[26] 



PROCESSES OF THOUGHT 

Tangled with others as flower-roots with roots 
Into a new festoon, or one old image, 
Wearing others like gems. And that's crea- 
tion. 



[27] 



AIRSHIP OVER SUBURB 



AIRSHIP OVER SUBURB 

A smooth blue sky with puffed motionless 
clouds. 



Standing over the plain of red roofs and bushy 

trees 
The bright coloured shell of the large enam- 
elled sky. 



Out of the distance pointing, a cut dark shape 
That moves this way at leisure, then hesitates 

and turns: 
And its darkness suddenly dies as it turns and 

shows 
A gleaming silver, white against even the 

whitest cloud. 

[31] 



THE BIRDS 

Across the blue and the low small clouds it 

moves 
Level, with a floating cloud-like motion of its 

own, 
Peaceful, sunny and slow, a thing of summer 

itself, 
Above the basking earth, travelling the clouds 

and the sky. 



[32] 



HARLEQUIN 



HARLEQUIN 

Moonlit woodland, veils of green, 
Caves of empty dark between; 
Veils of green from rounded arms 
Drooping, that the moonlight charms : 
Tranced the trees, grass beneath 

Silent 

Like a stealthy breath, 
Mask and wand and silver skin, 
Sudden enters Harlequin. 



Hist! Hist! Watch him go, 
Leaping limb and pointing toe, 
Slender arms that float and flow t 
Curving wand above, below; 
Flying, gliding, changing feet 5 
Onset merging in retreat. 

[35] 



THE BIRDS 

Not a shadow of sound there is 
But his motion's gentle hiss, 
Till one fluent arm and hand 
Suddenly circles, and the wand 
Taps a bough far overhead, 
"Crack," and then all noise is dead. 
For he halts, and for a space 
Stands erect with upward face, 
Taut and tense to the white 
Message of the moon's light. 

What is he thinking of, you ask; 
Caught you the eyes behind the mask? 
Whence did he come, where would he go? 
Answers but the resuming flow 
Of that swift continuous glide, 
Whispering from side to side, 
Silvered boughs, branches dim, 
All the world's a frame for him; 
All the trees standing around 
On the fascinated ground, 
See him swifter, swifter, sweep, 
Dazzling, till one wildest leap . . . 
[36] 



HARLEQUIN 

Whisht! he kneels. And he listens. 
How his steady silver glistens. 

He was listening; he was there; 
Flash ! he went. To the air 
He a waiting ear had bent, 
Silent; but before he went 
Something somewhere else to seek, 
He moved his lips as though to speak. 

And we wait, and in vain, 
For he will not come again. 
Earth, grass, wood, and air, 
As we stare, and we stare, 
Which that fierce life did hold, 
Tired, dim, void, cold. 



[37] 



WINTER NIGHTFALL 



WINTER NIGHTFALL 

The old yellow stucco 

Of the time of the Regent 

Is flaking and peeling: 

The rows of square windows 

In the straight yellow building 

Are empty and still; 
And the dusty dark evergreens 
Guarding the wicket 
Are draped with wet cobwebs, 
And above this poor wilderness 
Toneless and sombre 

Is the flat of the hill. 



[41] 



THE BIRDS 



They said that a colonel 
Who long ago died here 
Was the last one to live here: 
An old retired colonel, 
Some Fraser or Murray, 

I don't know his name ; 
Death came here and summoned him, 
And the shells of him vanished 
Beyond all speculation; 
And silence resumed here, 
Silence and emptiness, 

And nohody came. 



[42] 



WINTER NIGHTFALL 



Was it wet when he lived here, 
Were the skies dun and hurrying, 
Was the rain so irresolute? 
Did he watch the night coming, 
Did he shiver at nightfall 

Before he was dead? 
Did the wind go so creepily, 
Chilly and puffing, 
With drops of cold rain in it? 
Was the hill's lifted shoulder 
So lowering and menacing, 

So dark and so dread? 



[43] 



THE BIRDS 



Did he turn through his doorway 
And go to his study, 
And light many candles? 
And fold in the shutters, 
And heap up the fireplace 

To fight off the damps? 
And muse on his boyhood, 
And wonder if India 
Ever was real? 
And shut out the loneliness 
With pig-sticking memoirs 

And collections of stamps? 



[44] 



WINTER NIGHTFALL 



Perhaps. But he's gone now, 
He and his furniture 
Dispersed now for ever; 
And the last of his trophies, 
Antlers and photographs, 

Heaven knows where. 
And there's grass in his gateway, 
Grass on his footpath, 
Grass on his door-step; 
The garden's grown over, 
The well-chain is broken, 

The windows are bare. 



[45] 



THE BIRDS 



And I leave him behind me, 
For the straggling, discoloured 
Rags of the daylight, 
And hills and stone walls 
And a rick long forgotten 

Of blackening hay: 
The road pale and sticky, 
And cart-ruts and nail marks, 
And wind-ruffled puddles, 
And the slop of my footsteps 
In this desolate country's 

Cadaverous clay. 



[46] 



TWO SONGS 



SONG 

You are my sky; beneath your circling kind- 
ness 

My meadows all take in the light and grow ; 
Laugh with the joy you've given, 
The joy you've given, 

And open in a thousand buds, and blow. 

But when you are sombre, sad, averse, forget- 
ful, 
Heavily veiled by clouds that brood with 
rain, 
Dumbly I lie all shadowed, 
I lie all shadowed, 
And dumbly wait for you to shine again. 



[49] 



SONG 

The heaven is full of the moon's light, 

The earth fades below. 
In this vast empty world of night 

I only know. 

Pale-shining trees and moonlit fields, 

The bird's tune, 
And my night-flowering heart that yields 

Her fragrance to the moon. 



[51] 



A FAR PLACE 



A FAR PLACE 

Sheltered, when the rain blew over the hills it 

was, 
Sunny all day when the days of summer were 

long, 
Beyond all rumour of labouring towns it was, 
But at dawn and evening its trees were noisy 

with song. 



There were four elms on the southward lawn 

standing, 
Their great trunks evenly set in a square 
Of shadowed grass in spring pierced with 

crocuses, 
And their tops met high in the empty air. 

[55] 



THE BIRDS 

Where the morning rose the grey church was 

below us, 
If we stood by the porch we saw on either 

hand 
The ground falling, the trees falling, and 

meadows, 
A river, hamlets and spires : a chequered land, 

A wide country where cloud shadows went 

chasing 
Mile after mile, diminishing fast, until 
They met the far blue downs; but round the 

corner 
The western garden lay lonely under the hill. 

• • • • 
And closed in the western garden, under the 

hillside, 
Where silence was and the rest of the world 

was gone, 
We saw and took the curving year's munifi- 
cence : 
Changing from flower to flower the garden 

shone. 

[56] 



A FAR PLACE 

Early its walks were fringed with little rock- 
plants, 

Sprays and tufts of blossom, white, yellow, 
and blue, 

And all about were sprinkled stars of nar- 
cissus, 

And swathes of tulips all over the garden 
grew. 

White groups and pink, red, crimson and 

lemon-yellow, 
And the yellow-and-red-streaked tulips once 

loved by a boy; 
Red and yellow their stiff and varnished 

petals, 
And the scent of them stings me still with a 

youthful joy. 

And in the season of perfect and frailest 

beauty, 
Pear-blossom broke and the lilacs' waxen 

cones, 

[57] 



THE BIRDS 

And a tranced laburnum trailing its veils of 

yellow 
Tenderly drooped over the ivied stones. 



The lilacs browned, a breath dried the labur- 
num, 

The swollen peonies scattered the earth with 
blood, 

And the rhododendrons shed their sumptuous 
mantles, 

And the marshalled irises unsceptred stood. 



And the borders filled with daisies and pied 

sweet-williams, 
And busy pansies ; and there as we gazed and 

dreamed, 
And breathed the swooning smell of the 

packed carnations, 
The present was always the crown of all: it 

seemed 

[58] 



A FAR PLACE 

Each month more beautiful sprang from a 

robe discarded, 
The year all effortless dropt the best away 
And struck the heart with loveliness new, more 

lavish ; 
When the clambering rose had blown and died, 

by day 



The broad-leaved tapering many-shielded 
hollyhocks 

Stood like pillars and shone to the August sun, 

The glimmering cups of waking evening prim- 
roses 

Filled the dusk now the scent of the rose was 
done. 

• • • • 

A wall there was and a door to the rose- 
garden, 

And out of that a gate to the orchard led, 

And there was the last hedge, and the turf 

sloped upward 

Till the sky was cut by the hill's line overhead. 

[59] 



THE BIRDS 

And thither at times we climbed, and far 

below us 
That world that had made the world remote 

was seen, 
Small, a huddle of russet roofs and chimneys, 
And its guard of elms like bushes against the 

green : 



One spot in the country, little and mild and 

homely, 
The nearest house of a wide populous 

plain. . . . 
But down at evening under the stars and the 

branches 
In the whispering garden we lost the world 

again. 



Whispering, faint, the garden under the hill- 
side . . . 

Under the stars. ... Is it true that we lived 
there long? 
[60] 



A FAR PLACE 

Was it certainly so? Did ever we know that 

dwelling, 
Breathe that night, and hear in the night that 

song? 



[61] 



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